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2008-03-20

Time for another blog entry. Two in 20 Minutes. Am I industrious, or what?

These twenty minutes had also another effect. I was happy before, now I'm incredulous. That's because I'm watching "Germany's Next Top Model" currently with my girlfriend. I really can't believe it. They cried, because they had to go to a hair-stylist. Seriously. I never knew there were really that shallow, self-centric women in the world. And they take themself unbelievably serious. People, whose biggest wish is to become walking hallstands, take themself seriously. Their whole world is looking good, being, pretty, hair, clothes and crying, crying and more crying.

What's even worse: This show is watched and loved by millions of girls and women. Hopefully, they take the show as how not to be. Otherwise, the amount of people whose presence I can stand will rapidly diminish.

Huuuu, I as a guy just ranted about a girly TV-show, thousands of (male) journalists stated they hate before. Call me inventive and quirky.

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2008-03-20

I'm going to San Francisco

Thanks to a good friend, Julius, who let's me stay in his suite for two weeks, I'll finally leave good old Europe. :).
What the hell: =D :> :)) ^^ *g*

Now, I'm excited - and a little nervous: I've never before travelled alone and had never before to change airplanes. Well, I'll have to learn a lot.
The fun part is, I actually have no idea what I am going to do in the States. Besides working, that is; I don't really have the time for another break from my diploma thesis. But apart from working, I have no idea. Surprisingly, the USA still have that theme-park-vibe to them in my eyes. That's a little surprising for me - I thought I would be a little more down-to-earth in my opinions about the world. Well, I'm not.

Actually, I shouldn't be surprised anymore. After all, I should know by now, that I don't know myself very good.

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2008-03-15

Talked with Otmar, the guy who supervises my diploma thesis, today about the CeBIT. Turns out that Microsoft's "Surface" was there - if only for selected guests. Also, there was more than one multitouch-wall. And I missed other cool stuff, too.

Well, one day (especially the con's last day) just isn't enough to see everything!

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2008-03-12

I've been to the CeBIT in Hannover, this money-burning convention of all big IT-corporations, this weekend. And I'm a little disappointed. Well, the usual suspects were as expected there:

The massively overbred machines:

The tiny machines:

The "lifestyle"-machines (that's ordinary hardware with cheap "adornments"):

Giant screens:

The cars:

... and the gamer's hall (still playing Warcraft III)

So far, so ... expected. However, nothing spectacular or remotely new here. If only this stuff would have been presented, I would really regret the 4-hour drive there! Luckily, there was really innovative stuff, too:

A multitouch-sensitive table (cheap and working!):

By the way: Microsoft's "Surface" was nowhere to see!

A multitouch-sensitive wall (all these people interact simultaneously!):

A driver-less car:

And cool stuff, I've forgotten to take a picture from, like a real fast landscape-render-algorithm, robots, face-recognition-software, ...

Interestingly, none of the real cool gadgets and ideas can be found at the bombastic appearances of big companies, but somewhere in the less frequented halls. And, although it was nice to see some of these ideas in action, little of it was cutting edge - in the field of multitouch interfaces science is light-years ahead.

Conclusion:
Go to the CeBIT. Drool at fast machines, cars and girls. The bigger the booths, the more boring the goods. Don't expect too much.

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2008-03-08

The interest in PhotoPolis just goes on and on!
Now, it has even made it to Spain!

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2008-02-27

... time to drop the niveau!

picture from IcanHasCheezburger.com

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2008-02-24

"... sadly, teenagers are allowed on the internet, too ..."

XD

today's must-see:
How To Behave On An Internet Forum

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2008-02-22

Here was a hilarious, but temporary, blog-entry. And you missed it, because it'll never be reposted. Haha.

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2008-02-21

taromda (you were just hitting keys for that nick, right?) seems to be right: I'm doing something wrong at Basketball: I got injured again.

>_<

This time it's just a little rip in my upper lip - but, what the hell? In ten times playd at least five times my blood was flowing. That's nearly 75 % - and that's close to every single time! But, well, until the moment of ouch it's always fun - so I'll keep playing. And next time, somebody else wil suffer. Muahahaahahahaa.

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2013-12-14

projects

Below, you'll find a list of projects I did - or am still at. Of course, no project is ever finished, but some are, well, sleeping peacefully.
Not all of this stuff was done on my own, people who helped are honored on the respective subpages.

Flipz

Get your brain juices flowing with this fun pattern-juggling puzzle game.

Or, humiliate your friends in a two-player hot seat match!

hAiR

This project was created in an Augmented Reality course at my university. You put a kind of helmet on your head and the computer tracks your head and blends hairstyles on your head. If the result is not exactly what you wanted, you can use different "brushes" to modify, how extrem the style looks, change the color or even add new new strands.

photopolis

Another university project. The program takes your complete photo library and builds houses according to the date when the picture was taken and assembles them to create a city. Then, you can explore this city with typical fps-controls. So, if you have enough pictures, you can stroll through your memories: Take the christmas road and turn right to the 2004-avenue.

FourWins3D

This program started as a hhh (half-hour hack) during a short trip in the holidays: I love playing a game of four in a row once in a while and forgot to take my set. Well, I never forget my loyal notebook, so I hacked something at least playable together. Then hacking was fun again - so, the current version is fully 3D and playable over the web.

AudioPhield

My major university project. Goal of this program is to make your computer listen to music similar to the way humans do to automatically estimate musical attributes like speed, used instruments, rhythmic components, and so on. Then, AudioPhield depicts a new kind of interface for new ways to interact with your music.collection

VsGolf

One of the most interesting projects I was involved in. You play a kind of virtual team-golf-game: Virtual balls lie around anywhere in the city and especially in home-areas. Balls in your home-area are bad, they cause your time to lose points - so kick them out of your area, when you find them. The real kicker about this game is that it is played via your cellphone! You find a ball by (perhaps randomly) walking over its position and kick it by stepping back and running over the place, where the ball lies. Real fun, if you have a mobile phone with GPS!

PoRoBa

This project is the main cause for the existance of this site - and also names the domain. A huge part of this site is dedicated to that game.

2013-10-29

lnx

Ok, I know what you think: "WTF?? A 'links'-section? This is sooo nineties and embarassing private homepage" ... Well - it is ;) But this links section is there for ME mostly. I just want to have my links handy wherever I am. Yesyes, I know, there's del.icio.us and stuff like that, but I like this style better ;)

Legal note: I do not check all sites below frequently! At the time, I placed the link, these sites did not offend against any German or international law I'm aware of. However, sites change - if one of the sites offends now, I'm sorry and take my recommendation back. Please let me know, so I can delete the link!

2013-07-17

studies

Below, you'll find a list of courses I did during my studies at the LMU in munich. This is as much for me to remember what I actually did as for anyone, who is interested in what I should know and what the LMU offers.
On the bottom of the page, there is a table of stuff I'm experienced in, technical stuff that is.

2012-12-12

vita

1982-07-26	Born in Tirschenreuth. Slippery, I guess.
1988 - 1992	Elementary school "Marienschule" in Tirschenreuth
1992 - 2001	High school "Stiftland Gymnasium Tirschenreuth". Got the diploma with an average of 1.3. Graduated in Latin, Maths, Physics and Religion.
1997 - 2000	Part of the "Mystique Factory", a group of six students who intended to write a new kind of computer game named "northern blades" (something like a "battlezone" - though battlezone wasn't out yet - in a fantasy-setting). We got pretty far, but too much ambition paired with no time left, because of the final exams, ended it.
2001 - 2002	Military service as a medic.
2002	Started studying media informatics at the LMU in Munich.
2004	Intermediate diploma. Average exam-score: 1.2. Overall diploma-grade: 1.4
2005 - 2006	Worked as assistant scientist at the chair of media-informatics at the LMU.
2006	Started developing PoRoBa
2007	Completed my project thesis (the first part of "AudioPhield"). Grade: 1.0
2007-06-15	Started developing and filling this site.
2008-09-16	Handed in my diploma thesis.
2008-12-01	Started working at the Aloqa GmbH.
2010-09-01	Aloqa bought by Motorola Mobility Inc.
2011-08-15	Lead designer and lead engineer at Motorola Mobility Inc, Sunnyvale
2012-10-06	Co-Founder and CXO at Pockets United GmbH, Munich

2010-08-23

creations

This page contains all kind of stuff I did. Computer stuff. No big projects, nothing fancy, nothing I'm particularily proud of. But, well, I put it here anyway. You can't stop me. Take anything you like below and use it for whatever you like, but please refer to me or this site, when you do so!

Well, soon ... ish

2009-10-22

uhm ... what? where am I?

So, you stumbled on this page and have no idea, what you're doing here. I, the almighty king of this realm, have no idea, either.

But here's what this page is all about: This is the private homepage of a single person, KoMaXX, and what you will find here may be typical for private homepages. So, there is a blog (stupid ranting about ... uhm ... we'll see), self-glorification, some projects, finished or for ever under development, and stuff like that. Most of this half of the site, the komaxx-part, is effectively my playground and virtual business card.

Feel free to roam around and look smug. And if you own a PocketPC, take a look at PoRoBa, perhaps you'll like it.

2009-10-02

faq

Frequently asked questions. Mail me what's missing!

What does "PoRoBa" mean?: "Pocket Round Based". You are allowed to snicker. When I started the project, I didn't realize that German "rundenbasierte" games are called "turn based" in English. And now I stick to it. After all, "poroba" does also mean "slavery" in Czech. That's appropriate, I sometime feel like a slave to this project.
Does PoRoBa work on VGA-PDAs?: My guess is: "no". I don't have VGA-gear, so I can't test it. If I'll finally have one, it will work.
Is there a version for my PalmOS/MacOS/Android/Symbian?: Sorry, Windows Mobile only. PoRoBy is written in C# footing on the .net compact framework. As long as this framework and something similar to the gapi.dll are not available for other platforms, there will be no support. I don't want to rewrite everything.